FYI

I have started a new blog for my motorcycle posts.

Following the Yellow Brick Road

Fox Soil Cooling

Remember the giant gray fox that was eating my chickens? A neighbor thinks that it wasn't a fox I saw. His buddy dumped a greyhound poodle looking dog at his house, huge, fluffy and gray. He informed us that he thinks that it was this dog that I saw. The other day he brought us 12 pullets to replace some of the missing birds, and he is bring over one of his bannies to sit. He couldn't get his friend to pick the dog up, the guy wouldn't even return his phone calls, so now the dog has a heated fence, and no more birds have gone missing. I like this guy.

We have a long weekend ahead of us. We are getting top soil from my mother, and will be tearing up the floor of my house. I don't want to fall through it again.

Even with the air conditioner running, it is still a little too warm in the house. And I am not canning right now. Hopefully the weather men are correct, and it will be cooling off and raining soon.

I wonder how many odd google searches I will get with this title.

Unschooling? Homeschooling? Public school rocks!

I seem to be a popular little homesteader this week. The Fool, author of Relationalisms has posted a poem I wrote about Alzheimer's.

I admire you, you have taken a direction that I will freely admit terrifies me. Weather it be homeschooling or unschooling. I am unwilling {this would be the fear coupled with stubbornness} to take all my children's education into my own hands. It is bad enough that I am the role model in the house {my husband as well} I couldn't imagine how messed up I would make my boys. Maybe this is an irrational fear. Maybe it is me being completely selfish. It doesn't really matter because our Public school here rocks!

I have my concerns when it comes to American Public Schools. They have issues. Not to mention I am in Kansas and we have made national news more than once about creationism. Teachers here send notes home with God be with you, or God Bless you, as a closer, but no prayer in schools. They still say the Pledge of Allegiance, the only complaints come from the kids because it is too early in the morning to do it. And all those things do not bother me. Why? Not because of any religious preferences, but because it is a waste of energy to argue about it. The school my children go to teaches. My boys learn and they are thrilled about it. If there is a problem the teachers tell you and work with you to fix it. This is not so with other schools, mine for instance.

This school system allows the children to be kids. Not just tiny grown-up preparing to become CEO's. They learn through play, not lectures. Unfortunately there is this thing call the No Child Left Behind Act that has placed unnecessary pressure on the teachers and kids to memorize textbooks.

With all that said, yesterday was the first day of school here. I know it seems early. I have been hearing that a lot lately. We are a farming community, we have longer breaks {winter/spring, and get out of school earlier then the city schools. They do pay attention to the harvest.

My middle son started Kindergarten. I was worried about the shyness that seems to control him. Sometimes it seems to be physically painful to him. But yesterday it shattered. He loves school, he has a new friend, which happens to be a girl, and no he says she is not cute, just a friend. It was amazing to watch him.

We dropped him off and my 3 year old took it harder then I did. He pouted and whined. He wanted to be with his brother. It was adorably sad.

Today my middle child will ride the school bus for the first time. What and adventure for him.

I do have something to say

But before I tell you what that is. . . A few weeks ago I answered Blogsweluv's 10 questions {something that you can do as well by clicking here} My answers have been published. You can see what I said and what other bloggers are saying at




I did want to talk to you about something. It's about trying new things. It's been rather obvious that I haven't been doing as many new things for awhile now. It's not because I am scared, ok maybe at times the prospect of doing something new is a little frightening, do you realize how many mistakes can happen and you lose a hand? Dramatic much? Most of it seems that acquiring new skills are forced upon you, especially when you are homesteading. Dressing out my rooster for the first time wasn't something I planned, it was survival of the fittest. It was either me or him at that point. Braiding and storing onions wasn't planned, rather a necessity because of the shear numbers of onions that decided to grow.

Soon I will be shearing a sheep. The blame will lay solely on one Tales of a Texas Farm Wife, for forcing the thing on me.

I do many things for the first time, not because I want to, but because I have to. I know that many people will tell you that you don't have to do anything you don't want to. Those people are missing something. I use to feel that way, but now I see it as a selfish statement. Like anything in life, if you decide rationally that you will be doing something, like your career, you do it. And you do it with zeal. Wow, I am spiralling uncontrollably into a lecture about responsibility. I loathe being a grown-up.

I am not going to turn this into a lecture, this isn't about you. It's all about me me me! {stomps foot}

If I am going to be successful in my choices, that means I will have to take those shaky leaps into unknown territory, not just allow those things to fall on me. Unfortunately I cannot foresee my own future {that ability might be a tad scary}. And taking the bull by the horns, so to speak, might lead me to being gorged. Not an easy decision.

What I must do from time to time, is take a step back and actually see what is happening, not just in the moment, but what has happened in the past, and what paths lay in my future. One of those paths will involve you. Me? What!?! No, not you coming out here and dictating what happens, but the things that you say to me, the words you use can be encouraging or detrimental. Either way, you do talk to me, and it helps me figure out which direction I should head off in. I either want to prove you wrong, or make you proud. It is there, and I take it in.

My mistakes will continue. My adventure will be long. The ideas that come and choices I make will scar me one way or another. And I have to wear them with more pride than anything else I have ever worn, that is if I want to survive this.

New quests will be determined by the roll of my six sided dice.

Bikes, corn and home

Linda, the keeper of Raven's Roads is having a show and tell. What a biker! She walks around with a sign that says "SHOW ME YOUR. . . Bike!" Ha! She's not that kind of biker, so get that one out of your head. Got a motorcycle you want to show and tell? I brought mine in today.

On the homesteading front, my corn is burnt up. I watered and cared for it, yet it still didn't want to make it. This is the first time I have messed up on corn, and I don't know what I did wrong. There is a place a few miles from here that sells sweet corn, I will have to head there and by corn to can for the winter.

I fell through the floor of the laundry room on Saturday. I am tired of living this way. And am angry that credit scores are our only source of credit worthiness. I guess it is time I told you the story, I am sure some of you older readers are wondering why we haven't built our home yet.

We pay a company through our mortgage lender to watch our credit, they are to tell us when something negative has been placed on it. They didn't. We assumed everything was fine, and tried to push through our loan for the new house. Our credit score was too low and we were denied. What!?! So I looked it up. One bank marked us as a bad debt because we paid off a loan before it matured. So I fought it. It was only removed from one of the credit companies, not the others. But this didn't matter because we don't have credit cards and have paid off all our loans before maturity. This keeps are credit rating low. We stupidly thought that if we had no debt, that it would look good to lenders, everything was paid off in a timely manner. Nope, no go. So unless someone reading has $100,000US to loan me, it will be awhile until we can build our credit rating up to get a bank loan. Now we have to fix what is wrong with this house and hope for the best, like a plane landing on it for the insurance.

Impressed

Country Roads author Pamela is an inspiration to me. I have a clutter problem, not just my own but my husbands as well. For almost a year now I have been watching Pamela post Seven things once a week, she just completed a year. Seven things is where every week you de-clutter your home by removing 7 items. I can see where this might start off easy, but as the weeks pass, you start getting into more of the "are you sure you can do without these?" problems.

Congrats Pamela on your year.

Now I think it might be my turn.

My husband just returned from the Sturgis Rally. I am glad to have him back. The heat has been so bad here, the drought worsening, that I am feeling a little overwhelmed with all the work to keep things alive. But he is back just in time to see his middle son head off for his first year at school, and our 11 year Anniversary. And hey, if you are in the neighborhood on the 25th of this month, drop me a line and you can join us in a little party to celebrate.